Spring has Sprung and the Babies are Booming!

All signs seem to point to an early Spring this year -

The Forsythia has just started blooming, and the Snowdrops have been up for a few weeks.

Scarlet has personally tended this impromptu clump of snowdrops for a few years now, calling them her "fairy forest". 

The years first kidding went off without a hitch by first-time freshener, Valentina. She delivered twins, a boy and a girl, on the sly. Scarlet and her Grammy discovered the babies yesterday upon a visit to the back forty.  We think that they were delivered the day before.

Lunch!

Our newest blue-eyed babies, little girl (in the back) and baby buckling (in front)

I was relieved to have a lactating doe and a pair of healthy babies join our herd, but also a little bummed that this year will be the first time that I haven't been able to attend the births. Being a goat midwife is one of the sweetest gigs on this farm, and we may have as many as seven more does due to deliver any day. Heal fast, bionic knee! My girls need me!

For all that I'm missing out on, I should be able to manage at least a few early Spring farm chores, like starting seedlings on the heat mats and under grow lights, in anticipation of the new raised-bed garden that Bill is firing himself up to build.

I'll also hit up some of my usual, easy-to-reach spots to see if the stinging nettles have started to pop up yet. Nettles are some of the first greens of Spring, and we're all in need of a little spring green tonic to chase away the months of grey. With the hens now laying well again, I anticipate that we'll have some nettle egg noodles for dinner soon.  

Another sure sign that Spring is near? The frogs o' the bog, singing their little green heads off. The collective sound of a thousand or so frogs singing Are You Lonesome Tonight? in unison is pretty intense, though they blend together to make a sort of wall of white noise (This is a wav file of somebody else's frogs. Ours sound like this times about fifty.) It's one of those sounds that might make for a great track on a nature cd, along with waves crashing and rain falling on a tin roof. One of the previous owners of this house once told me that someone associated with some tv or movie production came out and recorded our frogs for use on some soundtrack. I have famous frogs!

I've been chipping away at this post for long enough now that an additional FIVE kids have arrived since I started. HOLY GOAT FERTILITY, BATMAN!

Gotta go pace a hole in the rug over these babies that I can't see. :\ More pics forthcoming asap!